Saturday 13 December 2008

China Energy Oversupply Seen

The mainland may face an oversupply of energy over the next two years, as demand growth slows at the same time that many new energy projects are set to start operation, a National Energy Administration official said.

1 comment:

Guanyu said...

China Energy Oversupply Seen

Reuters in Beijing
13 December 2008

The mainland may face an oversupply of energy over the next two years, as demand growth slows at the same time that many new energy projects are set to start operation, a National Energy Administration official said.

Growth in oil demand, power use and coal sales have all been faltering in recent months, said Wang Siqiang, the deputy director of the General Affairs Office under the administration.

“Given the huge coal and power projects under construction, tightness in energy supply may shift to a comparative surplus,” Mr. Wang said.

“Power consumption has been growing at less than 10 per cent in the past four months, and the situation in November will be grimmer,” he said.

Output from plants connected to key grids fell 7 per cent last month from a year ago, a source said early this month. If confirmed it would be the biggest decline on record.

Power consumption in Ningxia fell more than 30 per cent last month, while power use in Guizhou has declined to 200 million kilowatt hours (kwh) a day from 350 million kwh, Mr. Wang told the China Energy and Environment Summit in Beijing.

He said the government would start building a 40 billion yuan (HK$45.29 billion) coal and power base in Ningxia on Monday, which would have 4.4 gigawatts of power generation capacity.

A nuclear power plant in Guangdong, with at least 6 gigawatts of generating capacity has been planned.